Whenever You Call (2 page)

“Struggling with the next book—I can’t seem to find anything to write about.”

“You’ve never had that problem before.” One of his hairy eyebrows arched. “How’s your sex life?”

“Fine.”

“’Cause I was thinking that maybe your creative powers are affected by a less-than -exciting sex life.”

I ran a hand through my hair, deliberately provocative. “Nope.” Then I put on a thoughtful look, as if I’d just had a great idea. “Maybe the opposite, though.” I stared dreamily into the sun for a minute before taking a peek at him.

He looked gratifyingly disturbed. “I thought you weren’t dating—”

“I don’t tell the kids everything, you know that.”

“So you’re seeing someone?”

I looked directly into his eyes. “What about you? Fucking your way through all of the eastern seaboard?”

“Rose—”

“Umm?” I sipped at my cooling latte.

He waved a hand. “Never mind.”

This was an invitation to delve more deeply into whatever was bothering him, exactly what he wanted, with the end result that we’d go back to my four-poster bed and find solace in each other’s arms. It took all I had to resist. He was a great lover. I could practically
feel
the way his hands opened my legs and—

I stopped thinking about it. Instead, I stood up, shoving my chair back with a loud scraping noise. The latte splashed up the sides of my mug, like a mini tidal wave. “In fact, I’m going to be late if I don’t get a move on.”

He stared at me, mournful. For a second, I really wondered why he seemed so sad. It wasn’t like him. Did I, as a former wife, have an obligation to make sure that he was all right?

Firmly, I thought a single word. No.

I walked home as quickly as I could, working up a good sweat in the warm sun. I dropped my backpack on the floor of the small entrance hall, then grabbed the notebook out of it. It took only three strides to walk through the living room, decorated in the bright colors of a flowered chintz that covered the cozy sofa. I ducked under the low ceiling and dashed down the crooked stairway to the basement, where I had my study. It had taken years, but I’d finally figured out that I liked to write in subterranean, dark spaces. A rich dark green carpet and a mahogany desk, with a wall of bookcases, made the study so seductive that I still took a deep breath of satisfaction when I walked in.

I pounced on my computer and quickly typed out the internet address for Boston’s Missed Connection board on Craigslist. I glanced over the postings that had blossomed since I’d last accessed the site early that morning. Nothing for me, naturally. I clicked on the designated spot that would allow me to write my own posting and copied exactly what I’d drafted earlier at the Au Bon Pain.

In five minutes, it appeared for all the world to see.

But, would he?

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I stared at the words of a Missed Connection posting, with the heading “Re: Au Bon Pain, Harvard Square, 1:30 p.m.” A tiny diamond of drool quivered in the right corner of my open mouth. I was astonished that I’d actually received an answer and, for a moment, I didn’t even want to read the rest. I’d made it onto the boards of Craigslist! It occurred to me that for the three months during which my addiction to the Missed Connection board had grown, I’d always had the ability to post something myself. I had to wonder what was
wrong
with me. For example, why hadn’t I posted a message about that absolutely devastating man with the silver hair and red jeans? I swear he’d been staring at me for a full ten minutes on the subway last week. The red jeans, though certainly unusual, were riveting. What a colossal dope I’d been.

I scooched my desk chair closer and clicked on the answer to my posting. I practically stopped breathing. Yes, I knew my reaction was extreme. That was what celibacy and being forty-eight and having a too too personality because I was a woman writer, combined with a sideways little house, did. I read the tall bold letters, that formed words, that made two sentences of utter confusion and delight.

I sure did. I saw the sky and I saw you, and furthermore, I do believe I saw a former husband sit down next to you just after I left (when I turned around to look at you again).

This was, without a doubt, the most flirtatious writing I’d ever experienced. I was galvanized. I leapt out of my chair and walked in a quick circle, then sat back down again to reread it. I found my original posting and reread that, too.

I saw the sky. Did you see me?

Of course, I was going to respond. It was also tempting to send The Sky an e-mail on Match.com, but I decided it would be better to answer the posting. I read his message about three zillion times, then I jumped up again, and took the stairs two at a time. I dashed through the wee living room and took the next set of stairs one at a time, but fast. Ah, age. My funny kitchen was on the second floor, directly above my bedroom. I checked the time and noticed it was only mid-afternoon. Though I had an insane desire for a Tom Collins, I knew a Tom Collins at this hour would lead, ultimately, to my destruction. I popped a pod into my high-tech pod coffee maker, placed the mug underneath its spout, and pushed the ON button. In a mere thirty seconds, I had an espresso, to which I added fake sweetener. I carried the mug to the front window and sat at the old pine table.

I stared out the window and sipped the coffee. The leaf buds on the sweet gum tree seemed to be fattening and swelling right before my eyes. My mind hopped from composing an answer, to thinking about whether I dared to get married a fourth time. Really stupid, I knew that. Stupid because I didn’t even know The Sky’s name, so imagining our whirlwind romance and marriage was quite ridiculous. But also stupid because three failed marriages ought to be enough for anyone. I had no business even
fantasizing
about marrying again. It was a sickness. I should hate the institution.

Yeah, well.

There were extenuating circumstances to several of my marriages. I didn’t mean to make excuses, exactly, or maybe I did. The first marriage, to my college sweetheart, occurred because we were young and valiant and stubborn. He came from a working class background, though he’d gotten a good scholarship to Amherst. He’d been so uncomfortable with the middle class lifestyle attached to me that he pretended he actually loved it. He didn’t. We were divorced eighteen months after the marriage, fulfilling everyone’s predictions.

Now, when I really had news for Jenny, I didn’t want to call her. She would disapprove of the whole thing because she thought, number one, that the Missed Connection board was absurd and, number two, that online dating sites were also absurd. She figured, either you met someone in the natural course of events in your life, or you didn’t. In her case, that meant she didn’t. I would tell her about The Sky eventually, and she’d be okay because that was how female friends supported each other, but I tended to share stuff
after
the first rush of enthusiasm. I didn’t want her to stop me from doing something really ill-advised.

Not to pretend that being ill-advised had ever been a good thing for me.

The desire to reply to The Sky’s posting got stronger and stronger until I could hardly keep myself from ripping down the stairs. Deliberately, I washed out the mug and spoon I’d used. Then I dried them. Then I put them away. Finally, as calm as I could act, if not
be
, I wandered down the two flights. I clicked on all the right spots and started to type. There were many false starts and revisions. I kept straying into an overly serious tone. This was a failing of mine, which was why, to counterbalance it, I tried to write funny. Or, bare minimum, amusing. Light.

Umm.

My difficulty was that I
knew
this guy and he, apparently,
knew
me. How else had he figured out that Isaac was my former husband? It boggled my mind. And, in knowing him, I felt like I could say anything, in whatever manner I wanted. All the usual defenses and barriers just kept falling around my feet. Finally, in a ruthless attempt to be cool, I ended up with the following.

How’d you know he was former husband? A sky’s perspective, I suppose.

Before I could change my mind, I sent it in. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the Missed Connection board worked by forwarding a copy of your posting, for final verification, to your e-mail account. So there was always a last chance to change it. I resisted.

I waited, impatient, but after fifteen minutes my answer still hadn’t appeared on the web site. There was probably a backlog. I stood up and wandered around the study until I suddenly realized that I needed to pee. A large bathroom was tucked into the basement, to the left at the bottom of the stairs. I went in and, again, felt a strange satisfaction at my peculiar house. A rather gigantic, claw-footed bathtub was planted like garden statuary along one wall. This was the bathroom closest to my bedroom, requiring a trip downstairs. The other bathroom, on the second floor between the kitchen and the guest bedroom, had a small shower. I kept an electric heater in this one, and enjoyed endless soaking baths with flickering candles and a kind of massive moistness that entered my soul and kept me lubricated. At forty-eight, lubrication was not to be assumed.

When I’d finished and checked the board again, I saw my posting. Its brevity pleased me. Now I had to wait to see whether he would answer. Of course, my other option had been to send him an e-mail directly, to the anonymous address that went with every posting on the Missed Connection board. An e-mail to that anonymous address would automatically be forwarded to the person who made the posting, in which case, my e-mail address and identity would be revealed. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed so flirtatious to answer that way. And I, the consummate flirt, chose flirtation.

Ching!

The signal that I had received mail.

I got a thrill. It could be that
he’d
decided to write
me
directly.

Nope, the return address was my oldest son, Elliot, a screenwriter out in L.A. who, at the age of 26, made more in three months than I made in several years. He’d sold six, yet-to-be-produced scripts.

Hey Mom,

Just got a strange phone message from Isaac. What gives? Thought I’d check with you before I called him back.

E.

Isaac had been a terrific stepfather to my three kids, which made the breakup of our marriage even more difficult. He also, occasionally, used them to get to me. I had no way of knowing whether that was what he was doing in this case, but I was suspicious.

E-

I don’t have a clue. I ran into him at Au Bon Pain a couple of hours ago and he seemed a little sad or something, but …

Mom

While I waited to hear back from him, I checked the Missed Connection board. Nothing. I had a nasty feeling about this, like I’d already lost The Sky or something. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I decided to reread his profile and information on Match.com. That turned out to be a mistake because it inflamed me. I checked whether it was still too early to have a Tom Collins. It was.

An e-mail from Elliot arrived instead.

He sounded like he was about to cry or something, said he needed to talk to me. I’ll let you know.

Okay, I thought, I’ve had enough of this cyberspace stuff. I always knew when it was time for me to break away from the internet because I began to feel more like a machine than a woman.

I tore up the stairs and into my bedroom where I changed into running clothes. I usually had a daily jog in the late afternoon, though unlike most dedicated runners, I never really wanted to do it. Mostly, I just wanted to throw myself across my bed, burrow into its comforter, and bliss out. But I’d accepted that running gave me a high I loved, and it also kept me slim.

So, I ran.

I pulled my long red hair back with a tight elastic and yanked a sweatband around my forehead. After a final pee, I tucked my house key into the zippered pocket on my shorts and shot out the door. I always acted as if I was in a terrific hurry because, otherwise, I was afraid the lure of the bed would overwhelm me.

The afternoon had warmed up even more. I did a few stretches, then walked down the long path that ran alongside the main house, fronting on Mt. Auburn Street.

The owners, an elderly couple, seldom came outdoors. I’d worried about this in the beginning, but one of their daughters assured me that she came to check up on on them at least three times a week, so I stopped worrying. Except to wonder which of my kids would ever check up on me three times a week.

Besides the oldest, Elliot, I had a daughter named Alex and another son, Noah. Naturally I assumed that Alex would take care of me in my dotage, except that she really wasn’t the type. She’d come out as a lesbian when she was a freshman in college. Not the easiest moment in my life. At the time, I’d felt like it would be hard for her to be gay, despite the ways the world was changing. I knew perfectly well that no one can choose whether or not to be gay. But, all told, it seemed like it would be easier to be gay in about a thousand years. Plus, husband number two and her father, Trevor, had been apoplectic about her announcement. Alex was now twenty-four years old and in medical school.

Out on the sidewalk in front of my landlord’s house, I turned right and burst into a desperate run, too fast and awkward. I ran that way for a few minutes, trying to rein myself in and hit a more reasonable stride. I was heading for the Mt. Auburn Cemetery where I would jog along its meandering paths, dodging the giant angels and crosses. I heard pounding feet behind me and instinctively moved to the right-hand edge of the sidewalk. Sure enough, a man passed me in a spurt of speed, then settled into a slower pace about ten feet in front of me. Ordinarily, this would have irritated me, except that I’d noticed he had graying hair and absolutely terrific legs. My eyes moved up his legs, to where they ended in a tight butt. For a middle-aged guy, he had a stupendous rear end.

He was the perfect antidote to my mild obsession with The Sky. (Can an obsession
be
mild? Dubious.) I enjoyed the view while I had it, but I figured he’d keep going straight down Mt. Auburn after I turned into the cemetery. Instead, he pranced through the massive cast-iron gates framing the cemetery’s entrance. I slowed, wondering what to do. I didn’t want it to seem as though I was stalking him, but, on the other hand, I’d been planning to go there, too, so why should I change my direction?

On the other, other hand, there was always the business of changing directions. Supposed to be laudatory, indicative of great flexibility, blah, blah, blah. So, shit, I kept going. Only I immediately started composing a Missed Connection post in my head, reminding myself of exactly what he’d been wearing and having some fun figuring out my word choice.

Which made me think of writing. Or, more specifically,
not
writing.

My pace quickened. I felt like my running shoes had bouncy balls in them. I ran like a gazelle. Really, a
gazelle,
leaping through the tall grasses of the African plain. That’s when I truly changed direction, took such a radical right turn that my feet almost tangled together, though quick footwork saved me.

I quit.

Writing.

I bounced higher and higher, as the enormous weight of expectation lifted from me. After thirty years of working, sometimes successfully and sometimes not-too-successfully, at the profession of writer, I up and quit. Momentarily, guilt exploded somewhere in my midsection. I had, relatively speaking, a good career going when it was harder and harder to actually make a living as a writer. I could almost hear the pounding feet of all the wannabe writers behind me, fury at my ingratitude making them nuts. At my career stage, I’d hit pay dirt, after all. I had a publisher practically salivating for my next novel. This was not to be idly tossed aside. Nevertheless, I figuratively yelled over my shoulder. “Hey, if I step aside, there’s more room for you guys!”

I kept on running until I knew, even with the energy pulsing through me, it was time to head back. When I was two blocks from my home, sweat pooled in slick spots on my stomach, the small of my back, and ringing around my neck. Outside my little house, I threw myself onto the patch of new grass struggling to grow in the deep shade of very old trees. I bent my knees and stretched my arms above my head, heaving for breath. “Okay,” I said loudly, “I’ve got to get a
real
job.”

Came close to changing direction again. The safety and relative ease of writing another novel beckoned. It was daunting to try and imagine what kind of job I could get, and how that job would interfere with what had become a life of ease. And that, I knew, was exactly the problem. My bed was way too soft. I had to get a harder mattress, and maybe a hard mattress would somehow, inexplicably, bring to my bed the man of my dreams.